


The Heart of Hope

by Terapsina



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Universe, Character Study, F/F, Hope Mikaelson Character Study, Near Future, Not Canon Compliant, One Shot, POV Hope Mikaelson, Short One Shot, Slightly Future Setting, Stream of Consciousness, not entirely canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:35:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29579679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terapsina/pseuds/Terapsina
Summary: But the other thing about Lizzie was that Hope had always seen the survivor within the Lizzie Saltzman drama. The girl who couldn’t trust her own brain chemistry not to turn on her, and still put her entire heart in everything, no matter how many times it had burned her. If Lizzie had to deal with the bad days then she would make sure her good days would be the absolute best.It’s the kind of courage Hope envied sometimes./or/A look into Hope's head about her relationship with Lizzie and how it translates for Hope.
Relationships: Hope Mikaelson/Lizzie Saltzman
Comments: 9
Kudos: 73





	The Heart of Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Not really an answer to a prompt this one (though there’s still a few more I’m planning to get to) but I felt like spending some time in Hope’s head because she’s a harder character than Lizzie to feel out properly and I think I needed some practice in figuring her out more fully. Which is why this is more a head-space sort of fic than ‘stuff happening’ fic.

The thing about Lizzie was that she was the _loudest_ person Hope had ever known.

And it could be so, _so_ irritating.

Lizzie would talk over everyone around her, smile with more force and teeth than most wolves; she took to the most mundane things as if it were war and she the general. Which was extra frustrating when those mundane things were given more weight than the actual life or death disasters they had to deal with.

But the other thing about Lizzie was that Hope had always seen the survivor within the Lizzie Saltzman drama. The girl who couldn’t trust her own brain chemistry not to turn on her, and still put her entire heart in everything, no matter how many times it had burned her. If Lizzie had to deal with the bad days then she would make sure her good days would be the absolute _best_.

It’s the kind of courage Hope envied sometimes.

For Hope, opening up was excruciating. Opening up meant new losses, new opportunities to then thirst for justice and vengeance, new ways to fall into the darkest patterns left to her by her family.

It was so much easier to be better, - to be the kind of good her mother and her father wanted her to be, to succeed where they'd failed, - when there was no one around to break her heart. If she didn’t make a new family, they couldn’t be torn away from her. They couldn’t die, or leave, or _lie_.

Even now, it was terrifying.

If life was fair, opening up would be something Hope could have done just once. If it was fair, she could have just fallen in love with Landon and it would have been the end of the story.

If life was fair her mother would still be leading the Crescent Wolf Clan and not-

Her father would not have had to save her by-

But she opened up on that first day and then Landon lied and she had to find a way to forgive him. To not let herself fall back into isolation. And then she had to do it again, and again, every time she exposed another little part of her it was a decision that was as terrifying as it had been that first time, when there was just that boy with the nice eyes who brought her milkshakes and tried to ask her out.

And it wasn’t just Landon. It was Josie, and Raf, and... and Lizzie.

Except... except it was always that little bit different with Lizzie.

Being Hope Mikaelson when she was in front of Lizzie was so terrifyingly simple, Hope never even had to say anything. Lizzie could just read it on Hope’s face, or so it felt like whenever Lizzie looked at her and Hope felt like she was being _stared_ into.

Hope remembered the first of those stares. When Hope had realized the lie that Lizzie had believed, - had hated her for, for three years. When Hope said that she’d never lie or spread rumors about Lizzie's struggles with mental well-being or use her disorder against Lizzie, and Lizzie _believed_ her.

It hadn't just felt like Lizzie was hearing her words, when Lizzie stared into Hope with that look on her face like she was seeing Hope for the first time, it had felt like she could see past the spoken and into the very heart of that belief. Could see past the mention of her father and her grandfather, and noticed Hope's fear of becoming the sort of monster that was capable of hurting the people she loved. 

And from that moment on it was as if Lizzie could just see Hope.

She saw her when Landon wouldn’t leave her past with Roman alone and pulled her away to calm down. She saw her when she brought her to the middle of the forest where Hope wouldn’t hurt anyone, and told her to _scream_. She saw her when Hope found out that the dress she was wearing was one chosen by her father and she felt herself unravelling in front of half the town, the tight leash she held onto her magic unspooling like a knitted scarf getting pulled by its thread. Lizzie had seen her and known the exact right thing to do to save her.

Even when Lizzie had had no idea who Hope was it felt like she was still seeing Hope when she told her to do what Josie couldn’t.

Like she knew that Hope _could_. 

And Hope could, of course she could. She wouldn’t have, even if Josie hadn’t found another way herself, Hope knew she wouldn’t have done as Lizzie asked. But if Hope knew anything it was the difference between _‘couldn’t’_ and _‘wouldn’t’_. 

It almost felt like it had been inevitable for Lizzie to have been the first one to remember Hope. Poetic almost. Like there wasn’t a reality where it went different. Like there wasn’t a place where Lizzie’s first words to her were anything other than: _‘Hope._ Andrea _. Mikaelson.’_.

Not that she’d seen any of that at the time of course.

No, that was an entirely new and more recent problem.

Because the thing was, that Lizzie was Hope’s best friend. And yeah, Josie had once made it into jab, but it really was true. Lizzie was the closest friend Hope had ever had.

She understood Lizzie better than she did pretty much anyone else.

Found it so much easier to be honest with Lizzie than most everyone who wasn’t a Mikaelson by blood or bloodshed. 

Lizzie Saltzman had become one of the most important people in Hope’s life. It was almost funny how different Hope felt about Lizzie now in comparison with how she’d felt before all they had gone through, both together and just in each others general periphery.

Heartbreaks and lost friendships, near deaths and just days spent leaning on each other for the strength they couldn’t always find in themselves.

Hope had loved Lizzie for a really long time now.

So could she really be blamed for not realizing sooner that she was falling in love with Lizzie too? It had been so gradual after all. Something that happened almost in the background of everything else. And a feeling that was so different from how she’d felt about Landon that she almost missed it entirely. Certainly a world away from her years old crush on Josie when they’d been kids.

Lizzie wasn’t a love she fell into in a way that was almost without choice. It didn’t consume her, didn’t drive her to such extremes that it eventually became clear how they weren’t good for each other anymore.

But it also wasn’t less powerful.

It was... it was, like she could see Lizzie absolutely, _be seen_ by Lizzie absolutely. When they were spending time together it was as if it was absolute daylight and they could see all the best and worst parts of each other. It was like Lizzie seeing Hope’s darkness didn’t make it go away, didn’t make it _better_ , but made it easier for Hope to live with it inside her.

And loving Lizzie didn’t _change_ Hope. Didn’t patch up the missing parts with stuff that made Hope feel better but didn’t really fix her.

Loving Lizzie was- was entwining their pinkies into a promise, was holding each others hand when they needed it, was hugs that held the broken parts together just long enough that they could mend them themselves.

And Hope didn’t yet know what to do about it now that she knew. Didn’t know if she was ready to do anything when what she and Lizzie had now was so _good_.

Hope wasn’t quite as recklessly brave with her own heart as Lizzie had always been with hers. But- but she thought she might be this time. And there was certainly no way she could hide it for any length of time anyway.

Lizzie had always been able to see what was inside Hope’s heart even without the necessity for words. Could bring it all to light just by putting weight on her middle name in a way that no one else had ever done so.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought. Writing Hope was harder than writing Lizzie because Hope tends to internalize where Lizzie telegraphs (not to say that Lizzie doesn't internalize stuff too, just that she does it differently and its easier for me to translate into figuring out her character).
> 
> Hopefully I did Hope some justice.


End file.
